It’s hard to know what to write today. I feel myself getting sick of these late night entries. I feel called to shift my entire day, my energy for the day to a different schedule. I have used this week as a distraction for myself. My days have not felt my own. I feel like a cog in a clock that does not belong to me.

I managed to sleep last night. My first time of almost a full night of sleep in quite a while. I woke up distressed though. I even said out loud ‘I am under a lot of stress this week’. Not a conscious thought of mine, and yet somehow expressing this from within me.

Tomorrow I am looking after one of our neighbours. The one in a carer role needs to run some errands and doesn’t want to leave the other alone. They are… I had to paused to work out how to word this. They have cancer, and have been told there aren’t any options. I guess the proper term is ‘terminal’, and I hate writing that.

Only a few months ago they got the ‘benign’ diagnosis from a lump in their body. Now they are lit up like a Christmas Tree. They also have dementia, and sadly, or gladly, they are not aware of this, more often than not. I have a card for them – the two of them. I have failed to write on it yet.

I am glad I didn’t write what I was originally going to say, as at that stage I did not know they also had dementia. I would see them running away from me, when we locked eyes in the yard, I saw this as a sign they did not like me.

I feel badly this was my reaction. So self involved. I am just used to people running away from me, ya know?

The last person I was with who was this close to death was my Grandma. I think that is part of the reason for my resistance to do anything. I don’t want to say the wrong thing. I don’t want to do the wrong thing. I feel myself going into Freeze Mode thinking about it.

Tomorrow I am aiming to show up in the best way possible. I want to show up with an open and loving heart. They will likely be asleep, I am told.

How do you show up for someone who is terminal? Well, for starters, I put my feelings aside. Secondly, I love them extra hard.

What a way to put things in perspective. Here I am fantasising about the end, as a coping strategy. While right next door, someone is facing the end, and doesn’t even realise it.

Perspective, all right.

Lots of love,

Kate